Falling
by AllyinthekeyofX
Summary: Knowing when to catch someone before they fall.


Classification PG

Genre MSR Angst First person

Author's notes –

I haven't wrote a full work of Fanfic since 2001. I may well be a little rusty. I'm older, not much wiser and have less time than I used to have. But my muse has awakened after all these years so I decided to take it for a walk down memory lane. Be gentle. Feedback will help keep the muse alive. Feed it at  . 

Disclaimer – They still aren't mine. Although I treat them better than CC ever did and that has to count for something right?

3:01 am

Coronary Care Facility. St Lukes Hospital, Maryland.

I can pinpoint the exact moment I first realised I loved her. She was shouting at me. Drawing herself up to her full height, where even in those punishing 3" heels she used to wear, I was still head and shoulders above her. In stature at least. But at that moment I felt all of about two feet tall as she berated me for almost getting killed. Again. For ditching her. Again. I had gone haring across the country on a tenuous lead that was no more substantial than a curl of smoke, drifting lazily upwards even as it evaporated in to the ether of my obsession. Although for once, my brush with mortality had less to do with the case-that-wasn't-a-case and everything to do with the fact I had decided that sleep could be negated in favour of driving back home so as to be back in the office bright and early Monday morning before she realised I'd even been gone. One less report she would have to deliver. And I'd so very nearly made it until a shadow suddenly appeared on the road in front of me, twin lazer beams of green light coming out of the darkness as it suddenly froze in the road in front of me, caught in the glare of the metal monster which bore down upon it with frightening speed. I had a split second to make the choice – keep the car steady or veer off to the right. I've always had a soft spot for dogs. Even mangy street mutts such as this one. Because even mangy street mutts had someone somewhere relying on them. I should know. So for the sake of a possible Mrs mangy, I twisted the wheel sharply, felt the car pulling against me on the rain-slick road and...and...yeah, the details part kind of eluded me from there on. A slow motion journey in to nothingness as everything stopped aside from own body as I was thrown forwards in to the airbag which, given the fact I wasn't wearing a seatbelt, pretty much saved my life.

I woke up two days later, battered and bruised to find that the concerned Scully who was seated at my bedside quickly morphed in to royally pissed Scully when she realised I was going to be ok. That I hadn't actually managed to ditch her permanently.

A moderately bad concussion, another bump to further mar my less than perfect nose and a pretty spectacular whiplash were my rewards for trying to keep Mrs Mangy from becoming a canine widow. Scully, despite at one time being the rather unwilling owner of a mangy mutt herself, did not share in my enthusiasm for canine-kind in general and had made her feelings clear.

Despite that, being as no one else wanted the job, she accompanied me home the next day to ensure I didn't slip in to a coma whilst I slept. I could have saved her the trouble since I hardly slept anyway. But back then she didn't know that. She still laboured under the delusion that, outside of work, I actually led something that resembled a normal life.

I think it was the first time she had ever been in my apartment for reasons other than either watching me pace like a caged animal as I waited for a call or a sign or some other damn thing to justify my reason for being or to drop me off at the end of another fun day in Mulderland.

Being here in a Mulder-sitting capacity was unchartered territory for both of us and the atmosphere was so highly charged I could practically see sparks flying off that red hair of hers. Red hair equals temper. Or at least in Scully it does. On occasion, I've even seen her stamp her foot to get her point across.

No foot stamping that day though. Just white hot anger as I engaged in a spot of Scully baiting. We'd been working together for a relatively short time – six months...maybe eight at a push and we were a long way from being the cohesive partnership we eventually became. In fact, at that point she was still pretty much whole. Nothing much had personally impacted her on this crusade of mine. Aside from a fairly nasty brush with a twisted necrophiliac who decided that Scully's dainty fingers would make a nice addition to his frozen food compartment, she was still the same Scully who had shook my hand with a firmness that belied her delicate stature as she enthusiastically proclaimed that she was 'looking forward' to working with me.

I'm not sure what she based that assertion on. Aside from a moment in the spotlight where I had mentally danced with a serial killer inside his head – a dance that finally saw him fry in the electric chair after his avenues of avoidance had all been exhausted – there was nothing that would really warrant such a heady proclamation. People generally avoided being seen with me at all costs. Just in case the spooky was communicable.

I often wonder if, had she known how often I would leave her behind, whether she would have withdrawn her hand and turn tailed back out the door and right back to normality. But of course she hadn't known. How could she?

So there she was, all 5 feet 3 inches of fire, ice and fury as she vented her anger at a man who, up until that moment, had viewed this new 'partner' as nothing more than a mild irritation. A thorn in my side. Sent to needle, irritate and question all I held dear. To invalidate me as so many others had invalidated me in the past.

Spooky Mulder. In no way was I looking to find a Mrs Spooky to play perfect partners in the X-Files office. Initially I had given her a couple of weeks before she decided I wasn't for her and crept back to Quantico with her tail between those little legs of hers.

But she had stayed. And like a bolt out of the blue it hit me. Even as her face got redder and the frown lines deepened across her forehead as she attempted to at least get a justification out of me as to why I refused to allow her to be my partner in anything but name, I realised that, despite myself, I wanted her there.

I wanted someone with me who cared enough to be pissed off that I had engaged in yet another round of solitaire, who cared enough to berate me for putting myself at risk, who ended her tirade as she has so often done since that night. Not with anger, but with eyes downcast, to hide the shimmer and sheen of unshed tears. Tears of frustration that I had gone. Tears of relief that I was there. That my self destruct button had not yet been fully depressed.

"You could have died"

Slowly she had lifted her head and for the first time, I think I fell just a tiny bit in love with her. This woman who had somehow found a way through my defensive barriers and had made me feel that maybe, just maybe, I was worth saving.

I hadn't known what to say. I had courted disaster so many times that to suddenly have to justify it, to make amends for it, momentarily floored me.

Because no one had really ever cared before. I'd been hauled up in front of my superiors on numerous occasions, but only to justify the cost to the Bureau, never the cost to myself. In fact, I'd never really thought about the personal cost, certainly there was no one who cared to question me on it.

Until that moment of clarity where angry Scully and concerned Scully suddenly merged in to one. And I realised that for the first time, I wasn't just accountable to myself.

Oh yes. I fell in love with her that night so many years ago.

And now, as I watch her from my vantage point in the hospital corridor, I feel like I have been transported back to that time in my apartment, when I first realised that maybe, just maybe, being with her was preferable to being without. That no matter what came after, I was forever changed by her. She looks tired. She's lost weight recently and the angles of her face are sharper, more defined. It reminds me of how she looked when the cancer was destroying her from within. The energy she used up just fighting to stay whole, to carry on working. To stop me from falling.

I didn't realise it at the time. The sacrifices she made, refusing stronger pain relief right up to the end to try to keep working beside me, hiding so much from me regarding her health that she ditched me on a daily basis. Not physically of course. But emotionally she detached herself from everyone who cared about her. I never questioned her on it. If anyone understood her reasoning it was me. And deep down, there was a small, selfish part of me that needed her there. At whatever cost to her health. I've always been slightly ashamed of that.

And that's why I'm here. For all the times I ditched her when she needed me. For all the times I let her fight her battles alone. For pushing her away and out of my life because I couldn't let go of the fact that everything she went through was down to me. My work, my crusade, my selfishness. I'm not a fool. I know I destroyed the only good thing I've ever found in my sorry excuse for a life. I pushed and pushed and pushed and when that didn't work I simply retreated from her. Locked in a prison of my own making as she tried so hard to find a way to reach me.

Eventually she gave up. Exiting my life in order to finally start living her own. But, in typical Scully fashion, she had remained on the peripherals. Keeping half an eye on me in case I should fall too far. I've managed to stay upright. Just.

And now it feels as though we have come full circle. Back where we began. Dancing around each other just like we did in the beginning. But now our dance is practiced, honed to perfection over the years as I realise that our music was never really silenced, merely muted enough for us to hear.

I pull out my phone and hit the speed dial that will connect me to her and I see her start slightly as her phone springs to life. There's no sound though – in deference to her surroundings she has set it to silent, but the soft vibration has pulled her attention from her Mother. I see her frown slightly as she looks at the display and for a second I am sure she will choose to ignore my call with an angry swipe across the screen. I wouldn't blame her. It wouldn't be the first time I have disturbed her at an inappropriate time.

But she connects the call, bringing up her free hand and pinching the bridge of her nose even as she briefly closes her eyes. She has a headache. Even from this distance I can tell. A tension headache most likely. Brought about from her long hours of vigil at her Mother's bedside. But the sight of Scully with a headache still makes my pulse quicken in mild panic. Some memories are impossible to erase.

Her voice is guarded. No doubt wondering why I am phoning her at 3:00am and not tucked up in bed where I should be. I'd promised her earlier in the day that I would be sure to get some sleep. I lied.

"Scully"

She always answers the phone that way. Even when she knows it's me. That I already know it's her. Old habits die hard.

I pause for a second, hoping I'm doing the right thing, intruding where really, I no longer have a right to intrude.

"I'm here"

A sharp intake of breath as she jerks her head up and her eyes lock with mine through the small window of glass that centres the ICU door. She didn't expect me to come. Not in the middle of the night. Not in the middle of a case when our reinstatement on the X-Files is, to me at least, like a heady ride on a rollercoaster. Maybe five years ago she would have expected it. But so much has changed since then.

I hover outside the door, unsure as to whether I should let her come to me or I should go to her. But my indecision lasts only a few seconds before I softly step inside and cross the few feet that separate us. Her eyes have filmed over with unshed tears but she allows herself a tremulous smile.

"Hi"

I don't answer. I'm not sure anything coherent would get past the lump that has lodged itself firmly in the back of my throat. So instead I drop a hand on to the crown of her head, smoothing her hair back from her face as I let my hand follow the contours of her neck until it rests on her shoulder. A single tear escapes its confines as she reaches up and entwines her small fingers around mine. Gripping tightly, to stop herself from falling.

End


End file.
